'I have my own men,' Tirkenson added, rising. 'The lot of us can take the south side of the Aisle.'

'Good.' Ingold stood and lifted his head to search the faces of those crowded into the narrow barracks, seeking someone in the uncertain yellow light. 'I doubt that the Dark will be able to breach the walls themselves, but if they do, we must know it.'

'Can we know?' Melantrys straightened her sword belt, glancing up at him with chill black eyes. The Dark can swallow a man's soul or blood or flesh between one heartbeat and the next, a yard from his fellows, before he can cry out.'

'A Guard?' Ingold inquired mildly.

She bridled. 'Of course not.'

There you are.' He picked up his staff, his shadow looming behind him like the echo of the darkness waiting beyond the gates of the Keep. Once more he scanned the room, the figures there fading into milling confusion of preparation and departure. It might have been a trick of the firelight, but the lines seemed deeper in that calm and nondescript face. Whether this was from weariness, apprehension, or sheer annoyance, Gil could not tell.

All around them men and women were slinging on swords and finding cloaks; voices called to one another through the dark, narrow doors of the barracks. The air seemed somehow heavier, the fear in it as palpable as electricity; if she had touched Ingold's cloak, Gil thought, sparks would have jumped from the fabric. Janus remained for a moment at Ingold's side, towering over him, his broken-nosed, pug face grave.

That is for the corridors,' he said quietly. 'What of the gates?'

'Yes,' Ingold said. The gates. I feel that is where they will concentrate their attack. But with the height of the ceiling in the Aisle, once inside they can strike from above, and ground defence will be almost useless.'

'I know,' Janus said softly. They'll have to be fought in the gate tunnel itself, won't they?'

'Maybe,' the wizard replied. 'Gil - I shall need your help at the gates.' Then he frowned and cast a swift, raking glance over the remaining Guards. Bright azure eyes hooded like a falcon's glittered in the shadows. 'And where,' he asked grimly, 'is Rudy?'